The increasingly bitter battle Ryanair is having with Aer Lingus shareholders over its proposed take over of the carrier suggests nothing is likely to be settled soon.
The audacious move of Ryanair's ceo Michael O'Leary in mounting a bid for the Irish national carrier, which is 28% government-owned, seems to have raised hackles both in Dublin and in Brussels.
Staff at Aer Lingus, especially the pilots, seems adamantly opposed to it. The Irish government is opposed to it and the board of Aer Lingus has turned down the low cost carrier's offer.
In Brussels, the immediate reaction seems to have been one of surprise followed by a decision to say nothing for the moment. Mr O'Leary is, after all, not one of its favourite sons.
To recap briefly. As Aer Lingus launched its Initial Public Offering (IPO), Ryanair announced that it had bought 16% (now 19.2%) of the shares and made a €1.48bn bid (€2.80 a share) for the airline.
To put it mildly, the bid took both Aer Lingus and the Irish government by surprise. Hadn't that nice Mr O'Leary said only days before that Aer Lingus was a "just a small regional airline" and "irrelevant to the country."
Their reaction was little short of furious and both rejected the bid out of hand, with the government saying it would not sell its shares.
Should Mr O'Leary succeed, the ramifications were clear. A new super Irish airline would be created with a combined annual passenger load of 47m passengers (39m Ryanair, 8m AL), a market capitalisation of €7.9bn (€6.6bn Ryanair, €1.3bn AL), a turnover of €2,576m (€1,693m Ryanair, €883m AL), a fleet of 146 planes (111 Ryanair) and 421 routes (410 Ryanair).
Nine of these routes are long haul and in addition, Ryanair would acquire 300 weekly slots at London Heathrow.
As a comparison, the revenues of BA, Lufthansa and Air France/KLM in 2005 were, respectively, €12,614m, €18,000m and €21,452m.
But how would this new airline - should it ever emerge - affect business travel in Ireland?
Opinion there was hesitant, partly because it is unclear what Mr O'Leary might do and partly because Mr O'Leary is popular with the Irish business community. There is not the rush to condemn that you might find in Brussels.
Mr Arthur Harrow, managing director of the Executive Travel Group, Carlson Wagonlit Travel's partner in Ireland, gave a typical response.
"It is very unclear as to what plans Michael O'Leary has for Aer Lingus, and until we know these it is hard to comment. If nothing else he has the ability to surprise us.
"On a positive note he could develop the Aer Lingus long haul business and retain a service to the corporate traveller – but make the airline more efficient and profitable.
"On the negative side he could amalgamate the airline into the Ryanair model – relatively low service levels and flying to somewhat out of the way airports – which is not what the corporate market needs," he said.
Looking more closely at this negative side, Mr O'Leary has run Ryanair – with brilliant commercial success – on a strict low cost model. There have been no concessions to any category of traveller, like those travelling on business.
While easyJet, Air Berlin and Germanwings which actively seek the business travel market, make adjustments to the low cost model, Mr O'Leary has not done this.
It is unlikely that either way, on Mr Harrow's positive or negative side, that Ryanair would start making deals with corporates.
Aer Lingus, since it went "low cost" on its short haul routes (under the stewardship of Willie Walsh, now ceo at BA), is also making fewer and fewer corporate deals which is again bad news for the business travel market.
Either way it would seem that Irish corporates are poorly served by airlines which are willing to provide them with good deals.
As to the competition element, Mr Harrow is again not overvexed. "It depends on whether you look at it in a European or Irish context. However, we have many different airlines flying from Ireland every to Europe and the US. I do not see this as a major issue," he said.
It is a view shared by Christoph Klenner, an analyst with Brussels-based Prisma Consulting Group. He believes that the EC anti-competition authorities may not be opposed "all that much" to a take over providing there was competition on routes where a combined Aer Lingus/Ryanair held a monopoly. This is not a view that is likely to appeal to the Irish government.
What Mr Harrow does seed as a major issue, however, is the continuation of a regular service from Dublin to London Heathrow.
"A lot of the business community holds Michael O'Leary in very high esteem – at the same time they will want to know that some airline(s) will continue to provide a decent service to the corporate traveller.
“Obviously a service to Heathrow is crucial to make connections with other airlines," he said.
Mr O'Leary has expressed in the past little love for Heathrow (you cannot entirely blame him) but it remains a vital hub for the business traveller in Europe, especially those from the UK and Ireland, for onwards flights.
Would Mr O'Leary, as boss of Aer Lingus, stop that service, sell the slots? He is a man full of surprises and invariably unpredictable. Who knows?
But if he did and the slots were not retained, it would be a major loss to the Irish business traveller.